Growing Pains
by Yun Min
Summary: Zack never knows if he's in love with his best friend or not. Friendship seems such an inadequate way to describe something such as all encompassing as that relationship. Or, it could be that Zack's just doesn't have a very good grip on what friendship means. (zack/angela/hodgins, s2)


**A/N: Fiddling around with the idea of an ot3, I'm kinda liking this. With thanks to maryfic for the beta~!**

* * *

**Growing Pains**

_Zack never knows if he's in love with his best friend or not. Friendship seems such an inadequate way to describe something such as all encompassing as that relationship. Or, it could be that Zack's just doesn't have a very good grip on what friendship means. (zack/angela/hodgins, s2)_

It's his best friend buried in there, but even as he digs, gravel scraping against fingertips, Zack knows he's not the one with most to lose. That goes to the woman beside him with tears on her face, who has not only had her best friend ripped from her, but a fledgling love as well.

He doesn't know how Angela has remained as calm as she has.

He's rational, empirical, and even he hasn't kept it together over this case.

Brennan's now gasping on the ground behind them, and Booth's reaching into the dirt again, pulling Hodgins free. Angela's crying and smiling, and everyone's trying to touch and Zack ends up with his hands in Hodgins' hair and it doesn't matter because they're alive, alive, alive.

.

Best friend is the word Angela says is correct for him to use in reference to him and Hodgins. Hodgins backs her up on this fact.

Zack knows every single person who has ever allowed him to call them friend, and none of them have earned the moniker best.

And yet, now that he has one, he doesn't think the word is enough.

Zack knows his world is small. His world was his family when we was younger, and though that is large it balanced out when you considered there was no one outside it. Private high school didn't help. At college he was segregated from the others by a barrier of age as well as intelligence. At the Jeffersonian, he talked with only those who Brennan necessitated conversation with, and given Brennan's brisk work manner, it wasn't many.

That had changed with Angela's arrival.

Yes, he'd been living in the apartment above Hodgins' garage since before she whirled into their lives. But it had been a friendship of necessity, not real care.

But Angela had spun light and sparkle and warmth above all else into their lives. Shown them beauty when they'd thought there was none.

She reminds Zack of the myth of the Phoenix, with the cleansing and healing fire she leaves in her wake.

.

Hodgins insists on returning to the lab, going as far to check himself out of hospital against medical advice. Zack can understand that; he thinks that is what he would do, though he cannot know. His imagination does not stretch far enough to know what it would be like to be buried alive, and while part of him wants to ask, he does not. Even he knows that is a step too far over his boundaries.

He knows Hodgins should go home. However, he's not in a position to be convincing enough to force the other man to do so. Luckily, Angela is.

And luckily for Zack, she pops into the bone room before she leaves with Hodgins. Zack thinks she's looking to check if Brennan has snuck back to the lab, but she still smiles at him and goes: "Come on Zack, we're going home."

Angela bundles them both in her car. Hodgins rides shotgun, while Zack slides into the back seat. When they get to Hodgins' place, Zack tries to slip up the stairs but they both stop him.

In the kitchen, Angela boils a kettle over the stove, then pours out three cups of chamomile tea and hands them off. Zack slides fingers around to hold his firmly, but Hodgins places his on the counter top and inhales the fumes.

Zack waits for Angela to take the lead and speak, but no words escape her mouth. Instead, it falls to Hodgins to break the silence. "Can we just sit?"

They all settle on Hodgins' alarmingly large couch. Angela has an arm round Jack, who leans into her. Zack sits on the other end, but it isn't long before Jack has reached out a hand to tug his closer. Zack falls into his best friend's side, mindful of Jack's injured leg. It's comfortable there, with the warmth and security that Jack's alive. Angela's hand brushes his hair and it's oh so easy for Zack to fall asleep there.

.

They form a three out of necessity that first year of murder cases. The bond has its start before that, when Brennan is off in Guatemala and they have to show a united front. Then, they are pushed together as Brennan spends an increasing amount of time in the field with Agent Booth.

Zack delights in the snatches of time he can claim with either or both of them. He never expected it, but they are the two people who understand him the best.

This is why it's difficult to comprehend the idea of them in a relationship together. Hodgins' crush on Angela is not a complete surprise to Zack, but the idea that she might return his feelings is. Cam and Brennan both push her towards it, with little consideration for the third of their little trio, who no longer feels like an equal partner in the exchange.

(he struggles to truly dislike the concept, though, especially after the realisation of just how happy it would make them; all Zack wants is the people he loves to be happy.)

And it's not like he dislikes Cam, who is now a frequent presence in his life. He likes her perfectly well. She's a much better boss than Goodman ever was, a better leader than Brennan. For all that Zack idolises Brennan, he's not blind to her faults. Cam knows exactly how to push and pull and manipulate Zack to get what she wants from him – but she never steps too far.

He watches Angela and Jack laugh together and it pulls in his stomach, a nervous unsettled feeling that he understands he cannot tell anyone about.

.

Zack dreams about them sometimes.

For all he is guarded in his day to day life, he cannot help what he dreams. There his subconscious is allowed to roam free, and it always ends up centred on those two.

It's an objective fact that Angela is beautiful. Zack understands this the same way he understands the Riemann hypothesis. He takes it as another statement of the universe, a constant as sure as the earth's rotation.

But to find himself pulled against her, that is different. To feel the weight of his friend at his back, the slip of burgundy silk which covers all three bodies. Angela's hair brushes his face as she curls a hand round his neck and pulls him in to kiss her.

Consciously, Zack is not capable of this degree of fantasy. Unconsciously, his mind goes places he never knew, daring to dream thinks he never thought possible.

Some days, all it takes is one look from either of them for a blush to grace Zack's features. If either of them notice, they don't mention it.

.

Standing in the airport, waiting for a plane which will take him halfway across the world, Zack can't help but think it feels suspiciously like he is running away. Which is silly, because he is here under orders from the President of the United States.

He can't get Hodgins' face when he declined his invitation to be best man out of his head though. Zack can't bear the thought of tainting the wedding that way. Even though there was no wedding in the end.

Zack wants them to be happy for many years to come. That means a happy wedding day. Which isn't possible if every time they look at the pictures, they remember Zack. It's shockingly easy to hear Angela's voice shake as she talks about them: "And here's Zack. He looks so young – he was blown up in Iraq five months after this."

He shakes his head. They aren't married, so it doesn't matter. With any luck, he'll be back in six months and life will all be the same, and he'll be over the pair of them.

.

In case he doesn't:

He leaves letters with Kate, his closest friend outside the Jeffersonian. When the army ask who he wants to be informed if he is injured, he puts her name down. Though she is setting off on a tour of small theatres across the continental united states, she promises to deliver the news as necessary. The letters are to be mailed only on occasion of his death.

There is one to his mother (and family.) One is for Dr. Brennan, whom he will owe an explanation. The final is to Angela and Hodgins. Kate takes this one with a degree of concern, and asks Zack if he's sure he doesn't want to just tell them what the letter contains.

"They are getting married," he'd replied. "I cannot interfere with that."

She'd just smiled.

The letter says a lot of things he will never dare to speak out loud. If it reaches them, Angela will stroke fingers across it, believing that she can find traces of her lost boy in touching something he touched. Hodgins will read Zack's words and deny them and curse them and ultimately crumble with a sob of: "Why couldn't he just have told us?"

.

It doesn't come to that.

Thank God.

.

They take him back to Hodgins' mansion, make a gleeful show of it. Angela covers his eyes as Hodgins leads him up the staircase.

"Surprise," they both say as Angela lifts her hands from his face.

His room is exactly how it was. He'd put his stuff into storage before he'd gone away, not wanting anyone to have the pain of sorting through his things. Angela and Hodgins have ignored that, and retrieved his stuff.

"We told you," Hodgins smiles. "You're not getting rid of us that easily."

Angela slides an arm round Zack's waist. He doesn't know what to say.

"You don't need to say anything," Angela says, reading his mind. "You're family, Zack. This is what family does."

He lays his head on her shoulder. He's known for a while that home is not the place where he lays his head. He'd thought it was the Jeffersonian, but even now, he feels like he is home. It's the people. There aren't words to describe how much he has missed everyone from the lab, and Hodgins and Angela the most.

Hodgins claps a hand on Zack's shoulder.

Family. That's the word Angela used. Zack thinks he could grow into that.


End file.
